“Master, this is too small for everyone to use, is it not? I inquire.”

“Don’t worry. There are three more of them.”

I pointed at the other kotatsu a short distance away, though some assembly was still required.

Before long, the vanguard team called off their training, and instead I ended up leading a practice session on how to put together and take apart the kotatsu.

Once everyone could handle that, I had them try supplying it with magic, but Lulu and the beastfolk girls couldn’t quite manage it.

Lulu and Liza had used the Tinder Rod before, but it automatically absorbed magic when you pressed the switch. This was probably harder.

“It’s all right. You’ll be able to do it sooner or later.”

I comforted the kids who hadn’t been able to do it and readjusted the night watch shifts accordingly.

After all, if nobody on a particular shift could supply the magic, the heating would stop, and they’d get cold.

That evening, I was on the late-night watch with Nana.

Since there weren’t any animals or monsters around that would harm us, I decided to do an experiment I’d been meaning to try for a while. Just to be sure, I asked Nana to use her Foundation Magic spell Sonar to keep an eye on our surroundings.

I went outside the igloo-style Shelter wall and began some prep work.

This time, I wanted to attempt forging a Holy Sword with the instructions I’d gotten in Sedum City.

Arisa’s hint had helped me decode the cipher, and the resulting text was a guide to making “blue,” a special circuit liquid for creating Holy Swords, and then using that to create the special blade.

The blue seemed doable enough, but the sword itself required special casting equipment and the help of various magic experts, so that wasn’t feasible right now.

However, the process bore a close resemblance to the one for making demon blades described in Trazayuya’s documents, so the liquid itself could probably be used for other magic tools. I fished through Trazayuya’s documents and found a guide to making Holy Stones that I could try instead.

These were the elf version of the barrier posts I’d seen keeping monsters away from villages. According to the documents, the effect radius was about half that of the barrier pillars.

There were several types of Holy Stones to choose from, so I picked the easiest kind, which had an effect only when it was infused with power.

I did a search in Storage to make sure I had enough material on hand.

All right, let’s give this a try.

First, I’d need to make the blue.

The materials were similar to those used for making the circuit liquid that was needed for crafting normal magic tools, but blue’s stabilizer was powdered gold and gems, and dragon powder was required instead of ground-up cores.

Dragon powder seemed to be particularly rare. Once I’d figured out the recipe for blue, I’d immediately checked at all the magic and alchemy shops in Sedum City for it, but none of them had any.

Fortunately, I’d found a vial of dragon powder while exploring the labyrinth under Seiryuu City with the beastfolk girls, so I wouldn’t even have to mess around with the scales I’d plundered from the Valley of Dragons.

Following the instructions, I began the formulation and transmutation.

It was more difficult than I’d expected. If I lost focus at all, the dragon powder would start vibrating strangely, as if it was about to separate, so I had to keep constantly adjusting the flow of magic.

Come on, Satou. Concentrate!

After dozens of what felt like very long seconds, the blue was finished.

> Skill Acquired: “Precise Magic Manipulation”

Good thing I pulled it together and focused. It would be a shame if the finished blue deteriorated, so I moved it safely into Storage for now.

Next, I prepared a thin stone slate to use for the magic circuit of the Holy Stone. I’d utilized a similar one when I made the kotatsu.

With a sharp metal rod, I carved the lines of the circuit diagram–like design into the stone—then cleaned the dust and dirt off the surface with a cloth.

Then, in Storage, I filled the precision carving rod with the liquid blue. The tool was like a pen with a slim opening, used for depositing circuit liquid into the finely detailed grooves of the design.

Since the characteristics of items in Storage didn’t change, I took advantage of this to keep the blue fresh while I created my circuit.

The blue seemed to harden faster than the normal liquid. This made it easier to trace the intricate pattern, but without my Storage system, I think it would’ve been ridiculously difficult.

I completed the task and poured some power into my handiwork.

Since the circuit was so delicate this time, I moved the magic with the same precision as sorting grains of salt with chopsticks.

Using the “Precise Magic Manipulation” skill I’d just gained, I was able to move less than one point of MP at a time, down to two-digit decimals. As I did so, a faint blue light began rising from the circuit.

It was similar to the glow of a Holy Sword.

The color of this light was probably why the liquid was called “blue.”

Normally, the light was red-based, so it was easy to differentiate between the types of liquid.

Just as I’d added about one point of magic, the Holy Stone’s core began to work. I kept slowly increasing the supply of magic until the circuit was completed, about five points.

A pillar of blue light appeared around the slate, about three feet wide and twenty feet tall.

At a glance, it seemed to be a simple beam, but if you examined it from different angles, you could see the circuit pattern repeating over and over again.

Nana emerged from the Shelter igloo, where she’d been keeping watch.

“Master, the monsters shown by my Sonar magic have suddenly disappeared, I report.”

I shifted my gaze to the radar occupying a small corner of my field of vision.

Sure enough, the monsters around the edges of the display were gone.

“This light pillar has a monster-repelling effect.”

“Master, according to my information library, only Holy Swords emit a blue magic light such as this, I report.”

Expressionless, Nana tilted her head as she regarded the pillar.

“Yeah, this uses the same material as a Holy Sword.”

“I see… It is quite pretty.”

Nana nodded without looking away. She seemed to be entranced by it.

I left her to it for now, since I wanted to investigate the performance of the light pillar.

On the map, there were no longer any monsters within a third of a mile of us. They had been driven away and were now huddled in a neat ring around the area of effect.

I looked at my log, too, and found that a few ghost monsters had been destroyed when I activated the stone. The insect types were still around, and only a few skeleton monsters had been defeated, so my circuit was probably particularly effective against undead-type monsters that had no corporeal form.

Makes sense, since this is part of a recipe for a Holy Sword.

The effect range of a blue-based Holy Stone was a little less than the three-hundred-foot radius of a barrier post, but it was still ten times more than that of a Holy Stone made with normal circuit liquid, according to my documents.

Since the range of our go-to monster repellent powder was partially dependent on the wind, I was glad the Holy Stone had such a good radius. The problem was this exceedingly conspicuous pillar of light. At this height, it was probably visible from the nearby villages.

I tried using “Magic Manipulation” to reduce the Holy Stone’s strength by making myself part of the circuit, much like how I’d supplied Nana with power before. I let the magic flow through it and me, gradually lessening its power inside.

My plan was to temporarily remove all the magic and then try again, but…

“Master, the light has disappeared, I report.”

Though she was still expressionless, Nana’s announcement sounded vaguely crestfallen.

“Would you like to try powering it?”

“Yes, master.”

At my recommendation, Nana eagerly approached the stone and started pouring magic into it.

It was probably more difficult than usual because of the delicate circuitry; a few beads of sweat appeared on Nana’s forehead.

She got the hang of it soon enough, though, and the stone started emitting a pale-blue light. This time, the pillar maxed out at around six feet in height.

“That’s enough, thanks.”

“Understood.”

Nana seemed a little out of breath, so I handed her a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow.

According to her status, Nana had expended about 3 percent of her MP.

Judging by the information Arisa had given me before, Nana should have about seventy points total, meaning that this had cost her almost twenty times as much magic as me. Given the size of her pillar, the difference was probably greater.

Clearly, my magic efficiency was rather unusual when it came to tasks like this.

Since I could do it with essentially no loss at all, the ratio seemed way too different. My guess would be that a single point of magic could have different densities or something like that. It seemed likely, especially considering the size of our respective results.

Incidentally, the Holy Stone stayed in effect until morning with the magic Nana supplied.

With a few experiments during the night watch, I discovered that interrupting the light or covering it with a Shelter wall didn’t alter the effect.

I’ll have to make a cylinder with a light-shielding curtain tomorrow so that we can put the Holy Stone inside it and ward off monsters that way.

I still had a huge stock of the inferior monster repellent powder, but I figured there would be a use for that eventually. Holding on to it wouldn’t cause any trouble, so I squirrelled it away in a corner of Storage for now.

As I reviewed the map before bed, I noticed that the demon’s doppelgängers had been reduced from three to just one.

In exchange, the demon himself had changed from level 35 to 37. Apparently, creating a doppelgänger meant losing one level, and that level was recovered when the doppelgänger returned to the main body.

If the thing possessing the knight was another doppelgänger, it was probably best to assume that the hell demon’s real level was at least 40.